The multi-core chip revolution advanced this week with the emergence of Tilera - a start-up using so-called mesh processor designs to go after the networking and multimedia markets.
The Silicon Valley-based start-up's first product links together 64 RISC-like cores running at up to 1.0GHz. The real magic, however, stems from …

Transputer?

ElReg is the new Slashdot

Implications of mega-core processors for virtual world processing needs?

What are the implications of these mega-core processors for virtual world platform providers such as Linden Research (aka Linden Lab), maker of the popular virtual world Second Life?

Would Linden Lab be able to run a one simulator region per core and have region border crossings work seamlessly since the regions are running on the same processor and thus able to talk to each other much more efficiently than they would if the processors they are running on are located in seperate servers?

SMARTer Processing

Transputer!

@Bert Ragnarok

Just 'cos it's a Transputer, you don't have to use Occam.

Wrote an image processing app for T800 transputers back in 1992 in ANSI C and Transputer assembly code. If I remember rightly the compiler vendors (can't remember now who it was) provided a library to control assigning threads, and a configuration file described the interprocessor connections. Considering that the Transputer was designed for multiprocessing, ironically, we only used 1!

No Architecture Type

I notice that their website doesn't specify the instruction set. Probably an unlicensed MIPS derivative, given the number of cores they were able to squeeze on one die. In particular, they neglect to mention if it has a floating-point processor (I'm assuming it does not). Otherwise, it's very interesting since it already runs Linux and has on board PCI-e as well as GbE controllers.

This is not a transputer design, they just used a routed cellular mesh for memory i/o requests instead of a full crossbar one. (also allows message based nonblocking memory i/o, very similar to what amd uses for it's cpu interconnect) This is a very nice multicore design, but nothing new. It's just a bit more integrated than intel's multicore chips, but this was possible due to the simplicity of the cpu cores. As a comparision a gf8800 running at 500Mhz with 128 cores is just around 128000 mips, but uses a full crossbar memory controller (with 6 channels) 16 channels of pcie and 3 network interconnect ports.

If we can get this 64 core chip for a resonable price as a standalone system with memory and pcie slots and a sata controller added, then this would make a pretty nice 64 core linux box.

Re: Transputer

People ignorant to history are bound to repeat it

"Some companies have moved past the bus concept, ..."

As others already pointed out, INMOS did this nearly 30 years ago. It is possible that the author was not interested in IT at that era but surely should have noticed the internal architecture of IBM Power4/5/6 Multi-Chip Modules (MCMs)! Al right, I do agree that 64-core p590/p595 is lot bigger than a single chip but that is evolution, not revolution. OTOH there is no info what should one do if H.M. The Customer wants (65+)-core box, while with transputers much bigger scalability was achieved (I repeat, 30 years ago).